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Matt Tucker
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Spark Going Open Source

Posted by Matt Tucker on Jun 5, 2006 7:06:55 AM

We're very pleased to announce that the Spark instant messaging client is being released as Open Source. The press release discusses some of the reasons for the license change, but I wanted to provide additional perspective.

 

In the almost two years since we made Wildfire (formerly called Jive Messenger) Open Source, we've seen tremendous excitement and growth around the server. There's a huge community of peers answering one another's questions, and an active pool of developers contributing integration code, plugins, and performance optimizations. The combination of Open Source with an open standard (XMPP) is powerfully different in the EIM space; we wanted Spark to be a part of that platform. Spark and Wildfire already work great together, and that will only improve now that they're on the same Open Source footing.

 

Obviously, Jive Software is a company and there's a business model behind our efforts. We believe that a strong Open Source platform with innovative commercial extensions is the best approach for our customers. In the next several weeks, we'll announce the counterpart to Spark going Open Source -- a commercial solution to address many of the features that enterprise customers tell us they need.

 

Finally, a note about the actual release process of the Spark source code: if possible, we'd release it all right now. Unfortunately, there's a long to-do list before that can happen such as removing commercial library dependencies, changing source code headers, etc. The whole process took us about six weeks when making Wildfire Open Source, but we're hoping Spark will go a bit faster. We'll keep everyone up to date on our progress in the Spark forum.

 

4,466 Views Tags: planet-jabber, eim


Comments (16)
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Aug 20, 2007 4:55 PM Guest wroot  says:

great

 
Aug 20, 2007 4:55 PM Guest Travis  says:

Right on guys. Great news.

 
Aug 20, 2007 4:55 PM Guest sake  says:

Is it possible to reduce Spark's memory footprint ?

Most IM software take 5-15MB of memory, but Spark need over 40MB !

 

Not many people are willing to keep such a bloat software running in the background.

 
Aug 20, 2007 4:55 PM Guest matt  says:

sake,

 

Almost all of that memory is coming from Java itself. To some degree, that's the price you pay for having a rich cross-platform application. However, there are still several things that can be done to reduce memory usage:

 

 

  • Further optimizations in Spark should shave shave off exra MB. We're working on some of these now.

 

  • There are some good improvements to memory usage coming in the next version of Java, which will ship this fall.

 

  • New computers always have more and more RAM.

 
Aug 20, 2007 4:55 PM Guest Jay  says:

Derek asked me what I thought the biggest difference will be between having Spark be open source, and having a HOW-TO development guide.  Here are my thoughts:

 

My first reaction is I can "just go do it" when it comes to making a change, I dont have to wait for overworked develpers to accept my change.  But it really goes beyond that too.  When I contribute code to an open source project, there is a feeling of ownership and pride that goes along with it.  I think this helps develop a community around a product too, since it starts breaking down the strict producer-consumer model most software companies have. We have already seen examples of this with Wildfire:

 

 

  • Community members can contribute great new ideas

 

  • Community members can submit fixes with bug reports

 

  • Community members can get a better understanding of the limitations and strengths of the software

 

The key word there is "can."  Not all will, there will still be many people who "leech" but that really isnt any different than the current producer-consumer model.  By allowing the community complete access to the software, and even "free" ownership in it, the community will become more proud to use those products. 

 

I for one am glad to see a product like Spark go open source.  I think that means great things will come to it, and the company that provides care and feeding to the project.

 
Aug 20, 2007 4:55 PM Guest santhosh kumar  says:

It is good news for me.  So I can customise according to my corporate needs

 
Aug 20, 2007 4:55 PM Guest Sean  says:

Great work Jive! Hope to see you at OSCON in July.

 
Aug 20, 2007 4:55 PM Guest J.D. Pace  says:

I watched the memory footprint in the XP Task Manager as I triggered different events in Spark.

 

1. Startup with autologon: 37,100k (no windows dispayed, tray Icon only.

2. Open the client window by clicking on the tray icon: 39,140k.

3. Close the client window by clicking on the "X": 39,456k

4. Reopen the client window: 39,844k

5. MINIMIZE the client window: 2,936k

6. Restore the client window: 15,548k

 

I don't know much about the JRE, but I did notice that it appears to clean up nicely when all application windows are minimized, but it does not perform the same cleanup when the client is minimized to the system tray.

 
Aug 20, 2007 4:55 PM Guest wroot  says:

J.D. taking less memory when minimized is common for all windows programs. I think this is achieved by moving most of date to swap. Which is slow and takes longer for program to get up. If program is small and fast you dont see difference so it's nice when it takes less memory minimized. But with java, i can even prefer it to take 40Mb all the time and dont use swap ever. I like when my apps are reacting quick after long idle time. So i dont have to wait even a few seconds.

 
Aug 20, 2007 4:55 PM Guest rcw  says:

Ignore the "Mem Usage" column in Task Manager. Enable the "Virtual Memory Size" column and use that.

 
Aug 20, 2007 4:55 PM Guest sbaier  says:

If Spark uses 40mb of RAM, I am presuming that this wouldn't be a good option to have running on a Citrix server.  The majority of our users have WinTerms and run all applications off of Citrix.  Any opitions I have?

 
Aug 20, 2007 4:55 PM Guest matt  says:

sbaier -- if for some reason Spark doesn't work in your environment currently, you always have the option of using another client that implements the XMPP protocol. There's a large list of clients available at http://www.jabber.org and they generally all work great with Wildfire.

 
Aug 20, 2007 4:55 PM Guest Dhaval  says:

A nice to use IM, easy and very powerful, so guys can u please keep me updated with new techs...?

 
Aug 20, 2007 4:55 PM Guest sun83819  says:

hi,i got a question about how to confige the asterisk Plugin.

client: spake.

server: wildfire.

 

XMPPConnection conn = new XMPPConnection("myserver.foo.com", "user", "password");

PhoneClient client = new PhoneClient(conn);

 

which file should this code be put in?

thanks.

                                        Asia

                                           China

 
Aug 20, 2007 4:55 PM Guest Mirror  says:

Is it possible to reduce Sparks memory footprint ?

Most IM software take 5-15MB of memory, but Spark need over 40MB !

 

Not many people are willing to keep such a bloat software running in the background.

 
Aug 20, 2007 4:55 PM Guest BML  says:

I too run a Citrix type network, and 50 users running spark @ 39-45MB RAM, About 2GB's - Can't happen... Any find a Lite client thats like spark just not much a memory pig?

 
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